Advanced turbine engines and hypersonic engines that are currently being pursued for enhanced performance and improved operational efficiencies will require stable lightweight materials with robust mechanical properties across a wide temperature spectrum, that is, from a room temperature of 65° F. (18° C.) to operating temperatures of 1,200° F. (650° C.) to 3,000° F. (1,650° C.) and greater. Due to these stringent demands, only a limited number of refractory materials such as carbon or ceramic materials, carbon fiber or silicon carbide fiber based composites, monolithic ceramics such as silicon nitride and silicon carbide and refractory based alloys such as those based on molybdenum and niobium can be used. While possessing adequate high temperature mechanical properties, these materials all suffer from inadequate high temperature oxidation resistance.
Most approaches for creating oxidation protective coatings consider the use of silica (SiO2) based high melting point glasses and therefore are not expected to provide protection in the range of 1200° F. (650° C.) to 3000° F. (1650° C.) When teaching the use of refractory silicides for providing an oxidation resistant coating, most approaches frequently require forming high melting silicide compounds or eutectic mixtures of silicides with or without free silicon as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 7,060,360 to Eaton, et al., assigned to United Technologies Corporation and incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.
As described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,677,060 to Terentieva, these silicide coatings are created in-situ by high temperature annealing steps that form silica films at high temperatures. In service, such coatings may tend to form complex scales involving mixtures of silica, metal silicates and metal oxides. The combination of these phases (along with the substrate metal silicides themselves) may exacerbate the problems associated with differences in the various coefficients of thermal expansion.
Commercially available coatings for protecting C/SiC substrates typically provide good oxidation protection up to 3000° F. (1650° C.), but significantly decrease the strength of the underlying substrate.
Therefore, there still exists a need for stable refractory metal based protective coatings exhibiting high temperature oxidation resistance.